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“Emotion”: the History of a Keyword in Crisis Er.Sagepub.Com EMR4410.1177/1754073912445814DixonEmotion Review 4458142012 Emotion Review Vol. 4, No. 4 (October 2012) 338 –344 © The Author(s) 2012 ISSN 1754-0739 DOI: 10.1177/1754073912445814 “Emotion”: The History of a Keyword in Crisis er.sagepub.com Thomas Dixon School of History, Queen Mary, University of London, UK Abstract The word “emotion” has named a psychological category and a subject for systematic enquiry only since the 19th century. Before then, relevant mental states were categorised variously as “appetites,” “passions,” “affections,” or “sentiments.” The word “emotion” has existed in English since the 17th century, originating as a translation of the French émotion, meaning a physical disturbance. It came into much wider use in 18th-century English, often to refer to mental experiences, becoming a fully fledged theoretical term in the following century, especially through the influence of two Scottish philosopher-physicians, Thomas Brown and Charles Bell. This article relates this intellectual and semantic history to contemporary debates about the usefulness and meaning of “emotion” as a scientific term. Keywords affection, emotion, definitions, history, passion, semantics “Emotion” has, since 1884, been a theoretical keyword at the language” in English, and whether, in light of the answers to heart of modern psychology. In that year William James wrote an these questions, it can be expected to operate as part of a truly influential article in Mind entitled “What Is an Emotion?” A cen- scientific lexicon. An historical perspective can help to answer tury and a quarter later, however, there seems to be little scientific these questions. consensus on the answer to his question, and some are beginning Historians have long recognised the importance of keywords to wonder whether it is the very category of “emotion” that is the as both mirrors and motors of social and intellectual change problem. (Dixon, 2008; Williams, 1976). This is especially true in the Izard’s (2010a) interviews with leading emotion scientists, realms of culture and thought, where new words, or new mean- together with responses from other experts, powerfully demon- ings attached to old ones, can create new concepts, and even strate that, despite the continuing proliferation of books, jour- new worldviews, which in turn transform people’s ability to nals, conferences, and theories on the subject of “emotion,” imagine, experience, and understand themselves. Psychological there is still no consensus on the meaning of this term. Some categories and concepts in particular have this reflexive rela- even believe that it should be thrown out of psychology alto- tionship with our mental lives, shaping and colouring as well as gether. Among the scientists surveyed by Izard, there was mod- explaining them (Khalidi, 2010; R. Smith, 2005, 2007). The his- erate support for the view that the term “emotion” is “ambiguous tory of the term “emotion” as a keyword of just this kind is both and has no status in science,” and that it should therefore be shorter and more eventful than its modern users might imagine. abandoned (2010a, pp. 367–368). “Emotion” is certainly a key- Although the word “emotion” (imported into English from the word in modern psychology, but it is a keyword in crisis. Indeed, French émotion) was in use in the 17th and 18th centuries, it did as I shall suggest below, it has been in crisis, from a definitional not become established as the name for a category of mental and conceptual point of view, ever since its adoption as a states that might be systematically studied until the mid-19th psychological category in the 19th century. century. The present article uses the intellectual history of this Izard’s recent article and several of the responses to it (White, term to offer an historical diagnosis of the contemporary defini- 2010; Widen & Russell, 2010; Wierzbicka, 2010) ask questions tional malaise, and to offer a reminder of some of the ideas about the language of “emotion”: whether it forms part of a uni- about passions, affections, and emotions that have been forgot- versal human “folk psychology,” whether it is part of “ordinary ten during the last two centuries. Author note: I am grateful to the editor of this journal, to two anonymous readers, and to Emily Butterworth for their feedback on an earlier draft of this article, and to the Wellcome Trust for a research grant awarded to Queen Mary, University of London, on the theme of “Medicine, Emotion, and Disease in History.” Corresponding author: Thomas Dixon, School of History, Queen Mary, University of London, London E1 4NS, UK. Email: [email protected] Dixon “Emotion”: Keyword in Crisis 339 As Izard (2010b) rightly points out about the current debates, to withhold his assent from the judgement underlying that incip- the problem is not that the term “emotion” has no clear mean- ient passion, thus retaining his composure and peace of mind, ing, but that it has many meanings (2010b, p. 385). This has his apatheia. The Stoics aimed thus to use a kind of cognitive been the case historically too. I have divided this article into therapy to remain free of passions and perturbations of the three sections which correspond to three different dimensions of mind, while still being able to enjoy milder positive feelings those multiple meanings: categories, concepts, and connota- known as eupatheiai (Annas, 1992; Sorabji, 2000). tions. By thinking about categories, we can investigate which The response of Augustine and Aquinas to this Stoic view mental states have been thought to fall into the category of was twofold. In one way, they agreed with the Stoics: The pas- “emotion,” and what alternative mental typologies have been sions were indeed violent forces that could conflict with reason used, especially those which made a fundamental distinction and lead an individual into sin. But, on the other hand, they did between “passions” and “affections.” Secondly, by looking at not agree that a state of complete Stoic apatheia was one to be the multiple concepts that have been named by the single term wished for. As Augustine put it, someone who no longer trem- “emotion,” we can ask what theorists have intended to claim bled from fear or suffered from sorrow would not have won true about a mental or bodily state by calling it an “emotion.” From peace, but would rather have lost all humanity (Augustine, the outset, there was ambiguity and confusion. Finally, in the 1966, XIV.9). It was important for theologians to be able to dis- realm of connotations, we have access to those broader intel- tinguish between those troubling movements of the soul—appe- lectual, linguistic, and disciplinary frameworks within which tites, lusts, desires, passions—that the good Christian should keywords function. We will see that the different cultural terri- avoid, and those more virtuous and Godly affections of love and tories within which the words “passions” and “emotions” oper- compassion to which they might rightly aspire. For Aquinas, the ated gave them different roles in the production of both mental passions and affections were movements of two different parts experiences and of psychological theories. These reflections on of the soul, namely the sense appetite and the intellectual connotation will pave the way for some brief concluding appetite respectively. The latter was another term for the will. thoughts on “emotion” as a term in both everyday and scientific This distinction between passions of the sense appetite and language in the 21st century, and the morals we can draw from affections of the intellectual appetite, although interpreted vari- history. ously by different theorists and only rarely elaborated in detail, undergirded moral-philosophical thought for many centuries. The distinction was explicitly discussed in several philosophical Categories works (e.g., Charleton, 1701; Hutcheson, 1728/1742). A treatise The first books written on the subject of “the emotions” appeared about religious affections by the American preacher and phi- between the 1830s and 1850s (Bain, 1859; Cooke, 1838; Lyall, losopher Jonathan Edwards emphasised that affections were 1855; Ramsay, 1848). Until then, philosophers, physicians, mor- movements of the intellectual part of the soul: alists, and theologians generally used more than one term with which to theorise about mental states which would later be des- Holy affections are not heat without light, but evermore arise from some ignated “emotions.” Theorists distinguished especially between information of the understanding, some spiritual instruction that the mind “passions” on the one hand and “affections” on the other. In 1836 receives, some light or actual knowledge. (Edwards 1746/1959, p. 266) the English polymath William Whewell commented that the pro- posal to refer to what he called “the desires and affections” of The 18th century saw a proliferation of new ideas about senti- human nature as “the Emotions” had not been generally accepted. ments and sensibility, as well as about passions and affections. Even as late as 1862, Whewell was expressing his preference for But in almost all theoretical works, the various feelings and the compound phrase “the desires and affections,” while emotions of the human heart and intellect were understood to acknowledging that the term “emotional” had been adopted by fall into at least two categories: the more violent and self- some recent writers (Whewell footnotes to Mackintosh, 1862, regarding “passions” and “appetites” on the one hand, and the pp. xlv, 79; see also Dixon, 2003, pp. 186–187). milder and more enlightened “interests,” social “affections,” In order to understand this all-important distinction between and “moral sentiments” on the other (DeJean, 1997; Dixon, troubling desires and passions on the one hand and milder affec- 2003; Hirschman, 1997). A multivolume work on the passions tions and sentiments on the other, we need to look back briefly and affections of the mind composed in the early 19th century to ancient debates between Stoicism and Christianity.
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